November 9, 2017

The social network is asking its members to send in their intimate images in a bid to control what recipients of said images can share.

The new technology, which is being tested in Australia, enables a Facebook user who has shared nude or sexual images with another member to use Messenger to send the images to themselves as well. Once this is done, the images will be “hashed,” meaning they are assigned a unique digital fingerprint that the social media firm can then use to prevent anyone else from uploading the same image to Facebook, Instagram or Messenger.

According to ABC, Facebook is partnering with the government agency led by e-safety commissioner Julia Inman Grant.

“We see many scenarios where maybe photos or videos were taken consensually at one point, but there was not any sort of consent to send the images or videos more broadly,” Inman Grant said.

The new system, she said, enables users to share intimate images with their partner without the worry of what might happen in the event of a break up.

“It would be like sending yourself your image in e-mail, but obviously this is a much safer, secure end-to-end way of sending the image without sending it through the ether,” she added.

It is not yet known when or if the new functionality will be rolled out to other countries.